An Expedition to the Independence Mine

We too a trip to the Independence Mine State Historical Park the day before yesterday with Josienne and the kids:

As close as that looks to Anchorage (which is at the top of the Cook Inlet) it is over an hour and a half drive away.

This was an old underground gold mine that was shut down in 1943 because gold was not (and still is not) an essential mineral for wartime production. A "Barbaric Relic" according to Keynes.

Because the mine is at 3,500' and there was really no easy way to salvage the equipment and buildings, most of the stuff is  still there.

You can see the old prime mover diesel engine, which no doubt powered an electric generator:

The site is, of course, spectacular. It is Alaska!

They recreated some of the living quarters:

That was a manager's house. The miners lived in bunk houses.

They also had a gravity powered air tram that the used to bring the ore down from the mine:

And a rail road that looked like it should be in a Bugs Bunny cartoon:

This is the frame for thee tram:

Amazing views down the valley:

You can see some of the tailings piles in the distance here:

And that railroad. It gave me the willies just to look at it.

They dug a "water tunnel" that the miners used to get to the stopes, saving them a 22 story climb:

Most of the wood structures were falling down: (but Doreen didn't care!)

Here is the old mine train. It included a Gardner Denver mucking car:

and Ore cars, which turned into Kid Cars:

There is a ground squirrel in this image:

Quite a place.

And a good time was had by all. (well, except for one little girl in the corner)

Yes, a good time was had by all.

An Expedition to Katmai

Brooks falls is one of those amazing places where the confluence of events leads to spectacular nature viewing:

In this case it is the salmon run, a small waterfall that slows them down, and the proximity of many, many brown bears (also known as grizzly bears).

I am sure you have seen the videos of the bears feeding there, or perhaps even watched the Bear Cam.

There is nothing like seeing it live.

Now, it is not really easy to get to. You have to take a float plane:

 which are not really easy to get into:

and sometimes you have to keep track of the gauges:

and it is really crowded, and your wife has to sit back in coach behind some arm stealers:

and the runway is a problem:

But the views are great. This is salt water coming up the Cook Inlet mixing with fresh water coming
off the glaciers.

The views are spectacular:

Really spectacular:

The color of the freshwater lakes is determined by the minerals being washed down from the mountain glaciers:

You can see one of the glaciers here. You get a good view of the median moraines:

You can see the results of a retreating glacier here: (terminal moraines and such)

 and fantastic braided streams:

and sun dogs! If you look closely, you can see the shadow of the plane in the middle of the sun dog.

We got to the Katmai National Park and had to go to "Bear School" (I got a pin to prove it! You can see it on the right side of my hat below) and we were just walking to the viewing platform when the ranger started herding us all back to this little bit of grass (The little triangle at the fork):

because a bear was coming. A sow with FOUR CUBS! Sow 402.

We got on the grass with all the other campers. None of us wanted to be eaten or even mauled.

At this point I didn't really know what to expect, but here comes a bear! Mere feet away from us, walking with her cubs:

Then she started playing with one:

Just like Wild Kingdom!

She eventually let us pass, and we wandered on back to the Bear Viewing Platform.

They have two platforms open. A "no limit" platform, where you can just go and hang out as long as you want, and the "Brooks Falls" platform that only holds 40 people, and you are limited to an hour viewing. We were lucky, there was only about a two minute wait for us to get onto the Brooks Falls platform.

And it was spectacular.

You will see more bears eating more salmon than you ever thought possible.

This bear below must have caught about 15 salmon in the hour we were there. We learned that he is the alpha bear in the area, named 856. He sits in the water and waits, it looks like he is feeling with his feet. Every now and then he just dips his head in and grabs a fish.

Sometime he just eats it where he is sitting, other times he just takes it a few steps away. In any case he strips off and east the skin, maybe one or two other bites, and then lets the carcass float away. Much to the joy of the glaucous  wing gulls. I have never seen better fed gulls in my life.

We named 856 "Piggy Bear". He lives a good bear life.

Other bears would sometimes jump on the salmon. Less efficient from a calories in vs calories out basis, but you need the right spot. And Piggy Bear had that spot.

The younger bears spent more time walking around

But you could see a lot of fish jumping. We talked to one ranger who said they do regular fish counts. The most she has seen jump in a minute is 118, but the record is something like 200. We were seeing about 30 a minute.

The little bears also spent a lot of time on the land.

Bears would just eat and eat and eat

and the gulls just watched and waited. Amazingly enough, there were not thousands of the gulls.

They are good looking animals

This guy went to the top of the falls, and would grab the poor salmon as they jumped.

and the would carry them to the bank and eat them.

We started rooting for the salmon. They have a hard life.

We saw bear spoor as we walked back to the beach.

 and a Spruce Grouse. But we wanted it to be a ptarmigan.

Plenty of moose antlers here

This was a recreation of an Aluet house. The Russians were terrible, terrible to the Aluets.

Here we are, getting ready to fly back:

Good view of a glacier:

Another view:

 Here you can sort of see the blue ice the glaciers produce:

Back in Anchorage!